RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
Nov. 24 to Nov. 30, 2019

Featured Investigation
Decades of U.S. Inaction After Jonestown

Jim Jones and his U.S.-founded cult is remembered for the horrific events of November 1978, when more than 900 of his mostly American followers died of murder or suicide in northwestern Guyana; also killed was investigating U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan of California, slain on Jones's orders. A congressional investigation concluded in 1979 that the State Department had been "lax." But this Roll Call series and podcast take a fresh look at the 30,000-page record of that investigation - some of it only recently declassified - to paint a far more damning portrait of the government's efforts before the tragedy.

Among Roll Call's findings:

Family concerns were dismissed: Cables show that relatives of at least 48 members of Jones's Peoples Temple reached out to the State Department over more than a year, worried about loved ones' well-being and asking for help. The cases included credible examples of the temple restricting members' communications with outsiders and preventing them from leaving the Jonestown settlementy. The records detail the extent to which diplomats minimized and sometimes dismissed these concerns.

Temple defectors were also largely ignored: Deborah Layton Blakey fled Jonestown with help from the U.S. Embassy and warned U.S. diplomats about preparations for mass suicide. But both the congressional and State Department investigations omitted that she also told them resisters were to be murdered. Similar claims in an affidavit by a second Jonestown defector, sent to the State Department six months before the murders and suicides, were largely ignored by both diplomats and congressional investigators.

A report on gun smuggling was disregarded: A U.S. Customs Service report detailing allegations of illegal gun shipments by Jones to Guyana sat all but unknown in State Department files until after the deaths. It included key details that might have added legitimacy to the accusations.

Read Full Series

The Trump Investigations: Top Articles

Trump Knew of 'Whistleblower' Complaint When Aid Released, New York Times
Timeline: Alleged 'Sabotage' of Trump in '16 by Dems and Ukraine, Sharyl Attkisson
Emails Show Effort to Justify Trump's Delay on Ukraine Aid, Washington Post
Justice Watchdog Report Details FBI Misuse of Sources, Federalist
Files Could Change Ukraine Scandal if Trump Opened Them, John Solomon Reports
Giuliani Lobbied DoJ on Behalf of Wealthy Venezuelan, Washington Post
Did Team Giuliani Swap Legal Help for Tycoons to Get Biden Dirt?, New York Times
Hunter Biden's 'Baby Mama' Was DC Stripper, New York Post

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Ruthless Quotas at Amazon Are Maiming Employees
Atlantic/Reveal
Amazon's famous speed and technological innovation have driven the company's massive global expansion and a valuation well over $800 billion; it's now the nation's second-largest private employer behind Walmart. The company's obsession with speed has also turned its warehouses into injury mills, this article reports. Internal records from 23 of the company's 110 fulfillment centers nationwide show a rate of serious injuries more than double the national average for the warehousing industry: 9.6 serious injuries per 100 full-time workers in 2018, compared with an industry average that year of 4. Amazon says its injury rates are high because it's aggressive about recording worker injuries and cautious about allowing injured workers to return to work before they're ready.

'Affordable' Housing, Only in Poor Areas
ProPublica/Connecticut Mirror
Since the mid-1980s, almost $2.2 billion in low-income housing tax credits have been awarded to construct 27,000 "affordable" housing units in the state of Connecticut. Just 10% were built in prosperous towns. About 80% were located in struggling communities, reinforcing pockets of poverty. While many state leaders across the country direct such credits to poor areas, arguing that's where the need is greatest, Connecticut stands out on the national stage. In a recent federal study of 21 states, it had the second highest concentration of such housing in high-poverty neighborhoods, behind only Mississippi. A likely culprit: zoning requirements flagged by federal regulators as potentially discriminatory.

Historians Find Another Spy in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
New York Times
After years of research, the United States detonated the world's first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexican desert. Just 49 months later, the Soviets set off a nearly identical device in Central Asia, and Washington's monopoly on nuclear arms abruptly ended. The Moscow miracle did not result from scientific brilliance but espionage. Until now, we've known there were three American spies. Now atomic sleuths have found a fourth: Oscar Seborer. Like the other spies, he worked at wartime Los Alamos, a remote site ringed by tall fences and armed guards. Seborer nonetheless managed to pass sensitive information about the design of the American weapon to Soviet agents. The spy fled to the Soviet Union some years later; the F.B.I. eventually learned of his defection and the espionage but kept the information secret. In a separate story on the flip side of cold-war espionage, USA Today details the life of an CIA operative who befriended Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to try to take them down. The article describes him as a "real-life James Bond. He interacted with major players of tumultuous events involving Cuba and the Cold War from the mid-1950s to the early '60s."

Tony Robbins' Trail of #MeToo Charges (Parts 1-6)
BuzzFeed
The latest article of this series alleges that in 1985 the motivational speaker Tony Robbins - then 25 years-old but already rich and famous - sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl while serving as a star speaker at SuperCamp, an elite summer camp in Southern California. Robbins' lawyers called the new allegations "absurd" and said that they are based on "faulty" and "faded" memories. The alleged victim declined to be interviewed, but her lawyers sent a statement detailing her account. She said the incident had left her feeling "threatened in a manner that has traumatized me for decades."

For Train Drivers, Deaths on Tracks Leave Lifetime Scars
Philadelphia Inquirer
Deaths on America's railroads have been trending upward since hitting the lowest point in nearly three decades in 2012. Last year, 1,096 people died on the nation's rails, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Those killed include workers and people in cars hit at crossings, but the majority are trespassers who intentionally or accidentally put themselves in the path of a train. This article focuses on the people driving the trains. Almost half of America's engineers have operated a train that killed someone on the tracks. Afterward, many suffer nightmares, anxiety, PTSD. Nightmares, anxiety, and even symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can follow. Some drivers leave railroad work forever. Transit agencies typically grant just three days off after a fatality. With a therapist's approval, workers can get additional time, but train engineers often choose to just go back to work.

LSD Researcher and the CIA's Mind Control Project
Intercept
On the night of July 4, 1954, San Antonio, Texas, was shaken by the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. The man accused of these crimes was Jimmy Shaver, an airman at the nearby Lackland Air Force Base with no criminal record. Shaver, who claimed to have lost his memory of the incident, was executed for the crime. This article uses Shaver's possible but unproven connections to early government experiments with LSD to explore that drug program, called MKUltra.

The Ick Factor for Recycled Drinking Water
Scientific American
The climate is warming, and the population of drought-prone states like California continues to grow. So recycling wastewater into drinking water may become a necessity. But would you drink water that had once been flushed down a toilet? After it's been cleaned, that is. Studies suggests that is still a bridge too far for many people. In one experiment researchers had some participants watch a short video promoting water conservation. In another experiment, they added a video explaining why recycled water might trigger disgust, even though all contaminants have been removed. Neither video had a strong effect on people's willingness to drink recycled water or support the practice. "Disgust is such a powerful core reaction," one researcher explained. "It's such a powerful emotion that simply giving more information is not going to really be effective because disgust is not really a rational response."